Putting human faces on line items
Wednesday, Sep 23, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* A very worthy state program, without a doubt…
Jamie Anderson grew up in the foster care system. She relies on her 4-thousand-dollar MAP grant to pay tuition at the University of Illinois Springfield. She says she works two jobs totaling 50 hours a week to cover living expenses.
So what does she do in her spare time?
“I volunteer with kids,” Anderson says. “I’m in the 4-H program, I’m a mentor, I’m in Big Brother Big Sisters Program, so I’m a Big….”
Hoping to become a child welfare worker, she’s set to graduate in May with a degree in social work. But like the other 130,000 needy Illinois college students, Anderson needs lawmakers to fund the Monetary Award Program.
Most campuses, including UIS, have floated students in the fall semester, counting on eventual repayment from the state. But State Treasurer Michael Frerichs says college administrators around Illinois have told him they cannot afford to make the same bet for the spring semester.
* Another undoubtedly worthy state program…
Fear gripped 49-year-old Tina Wardzala of Cicero by the throat at a young age. It rarely has loosened its grip.
As a young girl, Tina said while her father was away driving a truck, her mother would invite men in, get drunk and pass out. Then the men would come to “play” with her.
About 15 years ago, Tina worked as a line cook at a diner and the regulars were like family. One of those regulars was elderly and ill. Tina was delivering a meal to the customer when she entered a dimly lit apartment hallway and found three men waiting. They raped her.
Before that moment of terror, Tina had worked at the diner and a branch library. She enjoyed music and waded into crowds at Grateful Dead and Neil Young concerts. In that moment, fear took her hostage. Mental illness enveloped her. She suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia and bipolar disorder. Cloaked in black, Tina shared her scariest secrets. At times, she choked out the words. At times, tears spilled. Fear has its hold. Now she also lives in fear of the state’s intractable politicians.
No court judge has risen to her rescue, nor those like her, diagnosed with mental illness. No continuing appropriation has saved her, nor the nearly 1,700 other adults and children who turn each year for help to the Family Service and Mental Health Center of Cicero, where she told her story from the safety of her therapist’s office.
“I’ve come a long way … thanks to my therapist and my team,” she said. It took Tina five years before she told her therapist about the rape that resulted in the birth of her 14-year-old son. She also has sons who are 25, 21 and 10 years old. Three still live with her, mostly on a $750 federal disability check and state food stamp money she says was cut recently from $365 to $140 a month.
Now her overarching fear is going somewhere uncomfortable, to a new doctor and a new therapist.
Executive Director John Morgan says the center got $190,000 in state grants and contracts for years. Now, only a $20,000 contract remains, one the state has yet to pay this year. Morgan has cut Tina’s psychiatrist’s weekly hours by three, as well as those of another psychiatrist, a woman who treats children and speaks Spanish in a majority Hispanic community. A crisis intervention worker and other workers’ hours also were cut. So far, Morgan has avoided layoffs. His staff refers some patients to a psychiatric hospital six miles away. There’s a six- to eight-week wait.
The problem, of course, is the lack of revenue to pay for these programs. Without a tax hike, the state is gonna run out of money or pile up unpaid bills in record amounts.
So, it’s great to put human faces on these problems, but we also need a recognition that the problems cannot be addressed without more money.
- illinoised - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 9:33 am:
I am saddened and I am angry. I come from a family background of deep poverty, alcoholism, and abuse. Without social services, my brother who has a developmental disability would never had held a job and lived independently. And I would never have recovered from substance abuse and lived a productive life, now happily married and at the end of a wonderful career. I cry for those Illinois citizens who are victims of political posturing. A pox on them all.
- illinoised - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 9:35 am:
A pox on the politicians, in case my sentence structure was misleading. It is difficult to type while angry.
- Roamin' Numeral - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 9:36 am:
==we also need a recognition that the problems cannot be addressed without more money.==
Exactly. And the longer we put off the tax increase, the higher the increase must be.
- Wordslinger - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 9:38 am:
The cost borne by the hostages gets higher every day, as does the ultimate cost we will all pay for cleaning up the willful mess made by the hostage-takers.
What’s the ROI on this expense? Surely, the superstars must have some hard economic and fiscal data as to what the benefits would be for passing their agenda.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 9:39 am:
Beth Purvis has ordered IBHE and ISAC to remain silent about the effect of the impasse on MAP students.
- ZC - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 9:41 am:
The thing about the MAPs is that it doesn’t just touch students, who sadly tend to be a pretty disorganized group politically, and university administration, whom Rauner is not a fan of and who have not had a great 2015 media-wise.
But unlike some of these other cuts that target poor and vulnerable populations, I think the MAPs might draw the attention of The Woman in the Cook County Suburbs. She may not be rich but despite her family qualifying for the grant she doesn’t think of herself as “needy,” and she may be displeased when she hears her kid has to find more to pay for college.
And Rauner, while he may be able to stick it to the poor, cannot afford to displease The Woman in the Cook County Suburbs.
- Been There - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 9:44 am:
===but we also need a recognition that the problems cannot be addressed without more money. ===
While I am 100% in agreement that we need more revenue, mental health funding is one that should be up at the top of the list to not be cut. I understand the court orders and continuing approps but how we let programs like these get slashed is a disgrace.
- Bemused - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 9:56 am:
Some time back I almost did a spit take when Rauner accused Madigan of having Icewater running thru his veins.
I understand compromise is needed to move things along but how do you reach compromise with someone who appears to be a zealot.
I have said before the Gov seems okay with watching the state go over the cliff if not granted his union busting wish list. How much he cares about those caught in the cross fire only he knows.
- south side - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 9:58 am:
Ask the Executive Director how much of the limited funds go to his salary and benefits.
- Langhorne - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:05 am:
Have you no shame, governor, caucus leaders, members?
- Aldyth - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:07 am:
There’s a human price for all of this and it is being paid by those who have the least ability to afford it and deal with it.
Emergency rooms and jails will be picking up the slack. When the parent decompensates, the state will be figuring out what to do with the kids. Pay a little or pay a lot. Prevention is about paying a little rather than paying a lot.
Good job, governor rauner. You don’t deserve capital letters in your title or your name. You are a very small man.
- Give Me A Break - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:09 am:
So the ED’s salary is the cause of this? Good to know.
- Norseman - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:14 am:
These casualties of Rauner’s war against unions need to be taken around to the editorial boards who parrot Rauner’s rhetoric so they can see the real world consequences. Probably won’t make a difference in their propaganda policy, but it may make lunch a little harder to swallow.
- Ben Franklin - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:21 am:
Let’s hope on this day of atonement that the soul of our Governator is touched by the message of Pope Francis as he addresses our other political leaders.
- Team Sleep - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:21 am:
Give Me - it’s a fair question. It’s one that I always wonder about when a school district immediately says that it “must” cut classes or programs during a budget crunch. I’ve never truly heard or read a school administrator or school board president mention cuts to teh administration. D-186 went through some awful times during the Walter Milton years and the only thing that was ever mentioned were cuts to teachers, classes and certain programs for the disadvantaged.
South Side just beat me to it.
- Juvenal - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:22 am:
ZC:
As I recall, the State Senator with the 2nd-highest number of MAP grant recipients is Leader Radogno.
Once again, you are spot-on.
BTW, the Senate District with the highest number of MAP awardees?
That would be the one once held by Rauner appointee Reverend James Meeks. Who has been awfully quiet about the fact that thousands of his former constituents who graduated high school and earned their way into college against all the odds are about to have the door slammed in their face.
Real profile in courage, that James Meeks is.
- Kathryn - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:27 am:
Kamikazi governor. He will crash and burn Illinois and then move on. He doesn’t care about its citizens.
- south side - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:42 am:
Don’t kid yourself about the salaries and benefits of some private agency execs. One south side child welfare exec. was paid more than the Governor, and had the agency pay for an expensive sports car. Often the hand wringing and “please think of the children” cries are very self serving. Also, the agencies like much of state government are homes to friends and relatives.
- Team Sleep - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 10:57 am:
South Side - that sounds an awful lot like the Alexander County Housing Authority story we all read a few weeks ago. But no - that can’t be right. That never happens!
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 11:03 am:
We are arguing over doing the right thing because no one wants to pay for the right thing.
Stop it. Stop pointing fingers. We are already burning our neighbors out of their lives because they belong to a union. We are already attacking our neighbors because they need money to feed their kids. We are already attacking our neighbors because we feel like there is no bright future.
Quit it already.
The Governor needs to stop dividing us so that he can stomp on us in his desire to give us a “right” to fail. He is advocating bankruptcy. He is advocating disunion. He is telling us that we cannot afford our present or our future.
Bruce Rauner is a governor interested in only dividing and destroying groups of our neighbors he believes are “unworthy” of our help. Don’t let him do this anymore.
- LarryMullholland - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 11:49 am:
Let us for a moment focus on the key point highlighted in the article which is School Funding for the those in need.
A disadvantaged student needs funding for her education. MAP grants her $4,000 and is now not receiving her grant $4000 to attend UoI Springfield.
Can she get a Student Loan? Why is she attending the expensive UoI with her limited education funding dollars? Are MAP grants creating incentives for the disadvantaged to spend more on their education than they would be able to afford? Are institutions of Higher ED preying on the disadvantaged and their tax payer provided education funding in order to support their university’s high tuition as well the salary and severance of the under performers on their payroll?
According to Chronicle of Higher Education, 2014-15 Tuition/fees at UofI Springfield was $11,367 as compared to Lincoln Land Community College 2014-15 tuition of $3,435.
U of I has multiple former Chancellors who will make $millions$ in salary and severance, yet the problem with the students lack of $4,000 grant funding, according to the partisans, falls squarely into the lap of the a new Governor not yet into his 10 month of the administration.
STAY THE COURSE: Whatever we do; let’s not look at the problems, let us continue to identify symptoms of the problems and then let’s play political finger pointing games.
Yeah, that’s the ticket! This is Illinois.
- Honeybear - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 12:00 pm:
GET SOME VANILLAMAN! GET SOME!
- farmer's wife - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 12:11 pm:
I am the ED of a community mental health agency and I have voluntarily cut my salary by 3/5 in an effort to save client services during this crisis. I now make roughly $12/hour with a master’s degree and 20+ years of experience. In spite of this, I still had to lay off staff and cut some services in an effort to weather this storm.
Do I like the budget impasse? NO. Do I think a tax increase is needed? YES. But I also know the crisis in funding for mental health services started long before this year. For the past decade the State has allowed our Medicaid rates to stagnate and chipped away at our grant funding. Now some of you want to point your finger at this Governor for his heartless treatment of those suffering from mental illness. Where have you been for the last decade, while the seriously mental ill were being warehoused in emergency rooms because there are no psychiatric beds? Why wasn’t anyone complaining about the heartless leaders when our jails and prisons became the de-facto mental health provider because the community mental health system became overwhelmed by the need?
Passing a budget, even one that includes a tax increase, is not the answer. Medicaid rates need to be increased to a sustainable level. Funding for providing non-Medicaid services needs to be provided. But neither of these things are likely to occur if people do not recognize the financial crisis in mental health services did not just happen with this budget. Mental health services in Illinois have been suffering a slow, painful death over the last decade. This budget crisis is simply pulling the plug.
- Anderson Villy - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 12:30 pm:
==Don’t kid yourself about the salaries and benefits of some private agency execs.==
Compare their salaries to people who run similarly sized businesses in the private sector, and then please explain why they should earn less just because they raise revenue in a different way from a private sector company.
- south side - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 12:38 pm:
If there is ever any real transparency pertaining to those who spend tax dollars on “good works,” I would be thrilled to compare.
- archimedes - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 12:42 pm:
This whole budget impasse is a lesson in obstructionism as a political strategy. Rauner, as long as the GOP’s in GA cooperate, has enough power to prevent progress - even progress he believes in and supports.
He doesn’t have enough power to create his vision, but he has enough power to damage our social framework. The Illinois republicans are no longer the irrelevant party - but their relevance is founded on obstructionism.
- Juvenal - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 12:44 pm:
==Don’t kid yourself about the salaries and benefits of some private agency execs.==
South side, we don’t have to ask the ED how much money he makes, because the information is all available online at guidestar.org, where you can see the tax returns of every nonprofit.
This guy makes %80K a year less than the woman that Governor Rauner put in charge of organizing parades.
His organization provides professional psychiatric services for 1000 adults and 650 kids a year.
And not only is he the highest paid employee there at a mere $140K a year, there isn’t another employee there who makes more than $100K a year.
Caveat: Churches aren’t required to file tax returns with the IRS, so information on how much pastors make is not available from Guidestar. If you want to know how much Pastor Brooks makes each year, you will have to ask the Governor’s Office for that info.
- Juvenal - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 1:38 pm:
=== If there is ever any real transparency pertaining to those who spend tax dollars on “good works,” I would be thrilled to compare. ===
http://www.guidestar.org/Home.aspx
Let the comparisons begin.
- It's A Loaner - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 2:36 pm:
Larry makes some good points above about the cost of college being a big problem and administrative costs meriting scrutiny. Some of the other points might need more context, though. For instance, the student was described in another report as a senior–so suggesting that she go to a community college isn’t a feasible alternative at this point. (It’s also possible that she started at LLCC–many UIS students do.) The other thing to understand is that most MAP recipients ALSO take out loans to meet those high costs Larry noted. MAP only covers a fraction of students’ costs anymore, so these students are generally working and taking out loans already–often already at the max that the feds allow you to borrow.
- Juvenal - Wednesday, Sep 23, 15 @ 3:54 pm:
Someone please send out a search part for “south side”.
Not sure if that is the south side of Wheaton or where exactly.
- Casey - Thursday, Sep 24, 15 @ 6:29 am:
Sorry, life is not fair….I appreciate someone finally looking out for my tax money.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Sep 24, 15 @ 7:25 am:
I appreciate someone finally looking out for my tax money.
We all pay taxes. Then we all get to decide how taxes are spent. If a majority wish to help the needy, everyone wins. With your frame of thought, no one wins. You abandon your citizenship when you think of yourself only as a taxpayer. You are better than that. You are a citizen.
I wouldn’t want to be in a fox hole with you, or I’d need to keep selling you on the fact that we need you to help everyone stay alive.
- Demoralized - Thursday, Sep 24, 15 @ 7:36 am:
==Sorry, life is not fair….I appreciate someone finally looking out for my tax money.==
Wow. You’re just a bowl full of compassion. I put you in the “not my problem” crowd. A crowd of people who can coldly dismiss others because they are all about “my.” We live in a civilized society and part of the cost of living in that society are programs such as these. Now, you may be able to wring your hands of everything and make snide comments that “life is not fair,” but some of us aren’t so caught up in the “my” that we are able to set the moral obligations we as citizens have just to satisfy our “my” attitude.
As VMan said, I wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with you.
Pathetic.
- Casey - Thursday, Sep 24, 15 @ 8:55 am:
The shame is comparing a military life and death situation (fox-hole), to situations that have to largely due to problems of one’s own making or lack of planning. Talk about apples to oranges.
- Jabes - Thursday, Sep 24, 15 @ 10:24 am:
Gosh, Casey, how would you have had Tina “plan” for being molested as a child and raped as an adult, leading to several severe types of mental illness? Or is she part of the “problems of one’s own making” crowd you refer to?
- JS Mill - Thursday, Sep 24, 15 @ 11:15 am:
=The shame is comparing a military life and death situation (fox-hole), to situations that have to largely due to problems of one’s own making or lack of planning. Talk about apples to oranges.=
Yes, apples and oranges, because he was really degrading our veteran’s and our American freedoms that everyone hates us for. You are a banned word if you are really trying to make that argument.
Vman was 100% on it. This Darwinian attitude toward our responsibilities as a citizen are great. /s
What happens when one of those mentally ill people find their way to your doorstep and you call 911? What if I don’t think we need the 911 services or police (since I can defend myself) and it isn’t there when YOU need it. You didn’t want to spend money to help those with serious mental health issues, why should I pay for police when you are now dealing with a problem of your own making?
How is that for a apples to apples analogy?
- Casey - Thursday, Sep 24, 15 @ 11:18 am:
Show up at my door with intentions to do harm and my FOID card and concealed carry training comes to good use.
- JS Mill - Thursday, Sep 24, 15 @ 11:51 am:
=Show up at my door with intentions to do harm and my FOID card and concealed carry training comes to good use.=
Spoken like a true patriot I am sure. tote that gun around the house do ya? I know I don’t carry mine at home.